Living in a Lie
by becka
Summary: Slash. Duo-POV. There's not much I could say to summarize this fic, but I will say that it's one of the few POVs I've written that I honestly like.


Title: Living in a Lie  
Author: Becka  
Pairing: 1x2, 3x2, 4x2, 5x2.  
Warnings: Duo-POV. Abuse, Angst, AU?, Blood, Dark, Duo-torture, Language, OOC?, Self-injury, Violence, & Yaoi. Very very odd.  
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing does not belong to Becka; characters are used without permission for a non-profit purpose. No infringement is intended.

o

Blood trickles from my knuckles, trickles from my mouth, trickles from the wall a few feet away from me. Does it hurt? I want to ask the wall that, and I almost wish I'd get an answer. Because if it hurts that wall, maybe it'll hurt me too.

I like the blood because it brings pain. I like the pain because it's the only thing that helps me feel these days. Going emotionally numb is a bitch. It happens to soldiers when the death and fighting get to be too much. I've been killing since I was seven. I've been dying since I was born. I'm due for a breakdown, you know.

In my head... that's where it all starts. Because I'll sit down when I have a spare moment, and I'll start to __think__. Thinking is a dangerous habit. Thinking gets people killed.

But I do it anyway.

I can almost hear Wufei's voice. "Don't hurt yourself, Maxwell." He's laughing in my head, along with the rest of my demons. Laughing and poking and pulling me apart, digging clawed fingers into my heart and making my brain dribble out from my ears. Maybe it's working. Maybe they can bleed my heart to the point where it just stops beating and eat away at my brain until I don't have to think anymore.

'Cause maybe, if I don't think about the killing, and the war, and the death, maybe then I'll be able to get past this and slip into the comfort of my joker's mask and jester's cap and wave my little baton with jingly bells at the end and go back to being Duo Maxwell, the lie.

Have you ever noticed that lying is a whole lot easier and more pleasant than facing the truth? I mean, out of "my wife's a slut who gave head to the entire football team" and "she loves me and I love her, and we'll live happily ever after and buy a dog and name him 'Spot,'" really... which would you pick?

What about my motto? What about, "I run, I hide, I never lie." It's true you know. I never lie. I __am__ a lie. There's a very fine difference. Because being a lie doesn't mean you're lying. It just means that you aren't yourself. You can't be yourself.

In my case, I never could be.

In my fifteen years, I've killed thousands and thousands of people. I've bled from any one of a hundred injuries on any given mission. I've had each bone in my body broken, twice. I've broken my own bones. I've sold my body. I've sold my soul. I earned the name "Shinigami."

And you know what I wish?

I wish I had a dog named Spot.

Make any sense to you? Nope. Didn't think so.

It makes perfect sense to me, though. It's my crazy, fucked up head after all, right?

You see, I only met one man with a dog named Spot. Just one. He was a middle class businessman with a loving wife, two kids, and a plain, brown beagle who he'd named, for some reason, Spot. He had a small house, a nice job, and a BMW. He played football, too.

He pissed G off for some reason. I don't know why. The professor never told me anything he didn't have to. It was always: "Kill this man," and "Seduce this one." What a life, right?

So my orders came through. They told me to ruin this poor guy's life.

So I did.

I showed him that his wife was a cheat and a slut. I showed him that his kids were misfits to his perfect way of life: one gay, the other certifiably insane. I got him fired from his job, ransacked his home, and blew up his car with a handful of C4, a fuse, and a piece of chewing gum. I even ran over his dog.

Ruined his life.

Took away his lie.

And all because some freak in a lab apron got pissed off at him. Quite the penalty, isn't it?

So, why do I want a dog named Spot?

Because that life, that lie, was a pleasant one. That lie is the life that I wish for myself. It doesn't matter if it's real or not, because before I came along and ruined it all, he was a happy man. That's all I could ever wish for.

Then again, I'm not going to live past the age of sixteen, so why should I care?

I used to, actually. I used to think that there was a fucking pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That somehow, miraculously, the war would end and I'd be able to wash away the blood and live a happy life. I used to think that the other pilots would make it out with me and we'd be friends forever, the five of us.

One more life, one more lie, one more illusion shattered.

I used to try to make them smile. I used to joke around and pull pranks and do the most outrageous things I could possibly think of. Anything to make them laugh. Anything to ease the sorrow from their eyes and the pain from their hearts. Selflessness some might call it. I just think it was my plain old masochistic tendencies acting up. After all, think of how much more people can hurt you when you let them into your heart.

They laughed at me behind my back, but I thought it was okay. It meant they were laughing, right? No matter what the reason.

They poked and they prodded and just like my demons, they sank their claws into my heart and oh, God, how it bled. But it was still okay. I still had hope.

And one by one, they reached out to me for support, used my body 'til it too bled, and turned me away. Each and every last one of them.

I held Heero in my arms during the nights and chased away the nightmares that plagued him. I opened my heart and soul to him, offered him comfort and asked nothing, and during the days, that's exactly what he gave me. My face was livid with black and blue, and the rest of me looked worse.

As a soldier, he was supposed to follow orders. I gave him freedom from that. And he gave me what I craved, in a way.

Quatre, on the other hand, never wanted to be held. He wanted me to beg.

He wanted to control something in his life, and that something was me. As heir to the Winner corporation, he always had to follow orders. As a Gundam pilot, he always had to follow orders. But as himself, with me, he never __had__ to do anything. Whatever he wanted, I gave him. I don't think he knew he wasn't the only one who hit me because he did it so often.

Now, Wufei... his was an odd relationship. He needed me because he wanted to feel guilty. He wanted to feel that he'd betrayed the memory of his dead wife. He __needed__ to beat himself up over it, just as he needed to beat me. I think he liked the pain it caused him. I can understand why. I like the pain too, sometimes.

Trowa was the sole exception of them all. He never hit me, not even once. Every time he touched me, it was like he was healing me with his hands. Each bruise he traced, each wound he kissed... I could almost believe that love existed when I held him.

Because I didn't just hold him.

He held __me__.

Once he asked me why I did it. Why I smiled and joked and gave my body to the other pilots to use as they needed.

"Just because," I told him.

Only that.

Because at one time, it was enough. It kept the darkness of my soul at bay. It kept me sane.

That time has long since passed. Otherwise why would I be sitting here, slumped against the bathroom wall with blood on my hands and blood on my face and a loaded gun in my lap.

Now helping them with their issues only hurts me.

Because Heero turned around yesterday and told me that our relationship was through. He had to go to Relena. To protect her. To protect his mission. I was a distraction to that.

I told Heero he was protecting himself.

Because Quatre turned around yesterday and told me that our relationship was through. He was sick of me, sick of what he was doing to me, sick of everything and anything that reminded him of me.

I told Quatre it had always been his choice.

Because Wufei turned around yesterday and told me that our relationship was through. He didn't want to dishonor his wife anymore, didn't want to dishonor himself anymore, didn't want to dishonor his way of life anymore.

I told Wufei the only thing he dishonored was me.

Because Trowa turned around yesterday and told me that our relationship was through. He didn't want to hurt me, didn't want to hurt the other pilots, didn't want to hurt himself.

I told Trowa that I loved him.

So I excused myself. I went into the bathroom. And I pounded the walls until they broke and I bled, until they bled and I broke. I bit my lip to keep from screaming, because I can't scream anymore. My screams died the day I stopped crying.

And here I am, today, all alone with a gun. Accidents happen.

It's a shame.

I liked my lie.

o

fin

o


End file.
